The likes of George Monbiot and Al Gore get pretty hysterical about global warming / cooling / dimming or whatever current theory is in vogue. The science is settled / the evidence is overwhelming they scream in an attempt to block any debate. In reality physicists, as a sub-section of the scientific community, are a lot less keen on the whole carbon and climate scare racket. Scientists are not usually unanimous on any subject which is complex.

The world’s leading physicists at CERN reckon they have discovered neutrinos travelling faster than the speed of light. If proven correct this will undermine a key part of Einstein’s accepted theory which constitutes the standard model of science. Of course it was once standard settled science that the atom could not be divided and it was the “settled science” until Copernicus that the earth was at the centre of the universe. The next time Monbiot tries to shut down debate by claiming scientific authority for his theories, ask him if the atom can be split or can anything travel faster than light? Climate changes undoubtedly, the significance of humanity’s carbon outputs is debatable. CERN has today shown that science is never entirely settled…

If Clarence gets in touch a copy of Matthew Sinclair’s  Let Them Eat Carbon will delivered in a four-wheel drive gas guzzler for this caption from last week’s competition: “Bryony’s interview technique left Ed Vaizey somewhat lost for words”. We laughed out loud.

Phil Collins in The Times on Ed Miliband…

Labour faces a government with no clue how to grow the economy as the cuts are biting and the third party has been cut in half. There should be no excuse for not winning. But the leader has not yet finished his self-portrait. In a year of his leadership he has not answered the Rolf Harris question: “Can you see what it is yet?” If an outline doesn’t emerge soon, he will end up with my son’s triceratops. Take a bit of green, a bit of red, a bit of blue, a bit of yellow and a bit of purple, mix them all up in a big splodge and what do you get? You get Brown.

For reasons Guido can’t fathom Harriet Harman and Yvette Cooper are hosting a ‘What Women Want’ meeting tomorrow at Labour Party conference. What they apparently don’t want is men at the meeting. However Mrs Dromey and Mrs Balls are giving Ed Miliband a sex change for the day and making him an honorary women so that he can address the meeting of the wimmin.

Charlotte Vere, founder of the more mainstream campaign Women On says she is

“astonished that men will be excluded from the meeting, not allowed in, left outside the door. … This is an outrage. Ed Miliband an “honorary woman”? Can you imagine a meeting to which only men are invited and Harriet Harman is an ‘honorary man’?” 

It strikes Guido as a throwback to Harriet’s more radical looney left days…

As the economic outlook turns from tough to terrible the pressure on the coalition is going to increase. Conservative governments have in their history and temperament the capability to stick to a tough, inevitably unpopular, fiscal line. This is not a Conservative government.

The LibDems have no such history, and in the case of Vince Cable, no such inclination. Reportedly he is already lobbying for an alternative economic strategy, a Keynesian Plan B. George Osborne is not going to alter the fundamental economic mission of the government, nor should he. So will Vince use his “nuclear option” and quit at some point? The bookies have him at 15/1 to resign from the cabinet.

Might be worth a flutter…